Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, April 4, 2026
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10 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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BlueSky.
Fatso and Whiskey Pete assured us they had “total control of the skies” over Iran. Turns out they were wrong. Now the mission to change the Iranian regime has shifted to a search and rescue mission.
The incompetence is staggering.
@Daryl: And they really think they’re gonna sneak on in there and grab all that uranium. Soooooo many eyerolls.
@Jax:
And all the oil, too.
@Daryl:
For 47 years it’s been about the OIL.
It appears to me that the military is discouraging women, people of color, and now even Catholics from full participation. How many exclusively WASP deaths in combat will it take to get them to invite non snowy white males into the fray?
@Daryl:
Stupid, nuts and delusional. That is bad for a whole lot of people and will get worse.
There’s a new and improve variant of the trump virus circulating everywhere.
There doesn’t seem to be much cause for concern.
But there’s one tiny caveat to make: the COVID 19 trump virus was by far not the first corona virus to ever infect people. It’s recent predecessors, like SARS and MERS, were not the first, either. The trump virus was just different enough to wreak havoc on a population, namely humans, which had not encountered it before.
So, it’s unlikely variants of the trump virus would be able to cause another massive pandemic like that of 2020-2022, given the immune memory from prior infections and especially vaccines and variant specific boosters.
How unlikely? Well, as unlikely as another common endemic virus, like the influenza virus family…
@Daryl:
@Jax:
It was always quite obvious, except to dimwits like Hegseth, that Iran would have some SAM systems inactive and concealed to avoid anti-SAM strikes.
There will be more.
@Daryl:
Well, just go ahead and proceed with that cunning plan, Mr President.
If Trump thinks this sort of of dimwittery is going to make any European or Asian allies whatsoever send forces to the Straits, he’s got another think coming
Not this time, bozo.
Maybe the Israeli Navy can help out?
Heads up: long cooking comment tomorrow, including the instant pot chicken stock.
Confirmed, the WSO of the F-15E downed over Iran has been rescued. Great evasion. https://www.axios.com/2026/04/05/iran-f15-crew-member-rescued
BTW, Al Jazeerra has a running update (blog) – being in the area they often break news (not in this case) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/4/5/iran-war-live-tehran-rejects-trumps-ultimatum-fire-at-kuwait-oil-complex